Wellcome Trust announces major new £1 million science and art award scheme

Issue date: Friday 31 January 2003

The Wellcome Trust research charity unveils this month a major new Sciart award scheme - its most ambitious to date - to further support and encourage innovative arts projects investigating biomedical science and its cultural and social contexts. The £1 million Sciart scheme will award grants for a series of projects over the next two years.

The new Sciart scheme will support activities that engage the public with medical and scientific advances and unite the arts and science in imaginative interdisciplinary research and production. Innovation and experimentation are crucial, but projects will be accessible to diverse audiences.

The Trust is currently inviting applications for the first of two rounds of Sciart Research Awards (up to £15 000) to support the development of an idea in its formative stages. The awards are aimed at practitioners in the arts and/or sciences, as well as academics and health workers. They could be used to fund either research projects, or small-scale productions such as prototypes, works-in-progress, artworks, performances or film. Applications are required by 25 April 2003 and award winners will be announced in May. The applications will be judged by a panel of independent experts, including sociologist Tom Shakespeare and artist Mark Francis.

Production Awards (in the region of £100 000) will be made to substantial projects that will reach public audiences and are likely to make a significant impact on their engagement with science. They are aimed at arts, science and broadcast organisations, and can be used to fund major activities such as conferences, art projects, TV/radio programmes, or theatre. The deadline for applications for the first round of Sciart Production Awards will be 25 July 2003. Winners will be announced in September.

A series of regional Sciart networking events will be held during February at major arts venues in Bristol, Glasgow, London and Manchester, and will involve local artists, representatives from regional arts boards, funders and arts venues. The meetings will allow practitioners to discuss their ideas for art and science projects with the Sciart team, and learn more about this new funding opportunity.

The new Sciart scheme builds on the previous innovative and successful Sciart award scheme and the Science on Stage and Screen awards:

Winners of the previous Sciart award scheme include:

Deborah Padfield ('Finding a Visual Language for Pain') (see footnote below)
Dorothy Cross ('Come into the Garden Maude' as part of Medusae), screened at the TwoTen Gallery in spring 2001 and at the Royal National Theatre in autumn 2001 by PADT)
Jacqueline Donachie ('Again and Again', accompanying book 'DM', published in 2002)
Catherine Yass ('Visualizing Complementary Shapes' shown at the Sir William Dunn School of Pathology in Oxford in 2000)
Andrew Kötting ('Mapping Perception' screened at Cafe Gallery Projects, Southwark and the Institute of Child Health in autumn 2002).

Previous Science on Stage and Screen award winners include:

Rosetta Pictures and APT Films ('Eye-See') (see footnote below)
Roz Mortimer ('Gender Trouble', premiered during the Liverpool Biennial in autumn 2002, and to be screened at this year's London Lesbian and Gay Film Festival at the National Film Theatre)
Helen Paris and Leslie Hill ('On the Scent', performance installation soon to be performed at home gallery, London, and the Fierce Festival, Birmingham).

Dr Ken Arnold, Head of Arts at the Wellcome Trust, said: "We want to encourage imaginative and unorthodox arts projects that will engage audiences and inspire them to think about the wider impact of biomedical science upon our lives.

"Science and arts have a lot to offer each other. Art, film, music and the performing arts provide fresh and exciting ways of communicating scientific information, whilst science with its vivid history, complex contemporary advances, and the social, ethical and emotional issues they raise, offers an inexhaustible supply of inspiration for the arts."

Footnote

Further information from previous award winning projects 'Eye-See' (A Rosetta Pictures/APT Films production with Dr Roz McCarthy), and 'Finding a Visual Language for Pain' (Deborah Padfield) are available in the form of picture downloads and project summaries.

Notes to editors

The new Sciart award forms part of the Wellcome Trust's Engaging Science Society Awards grants programme and is an amalgamation of two previous funding schemes: Science on Stage and Screen, and the consortium-funded Sciart Scheme. The new award will support all arts disciplines including visual and performing arts, film/video and broadcast media.
For further information, including details on eligibility, visit Science and art or contact the Exhibitions Office: Verity Slater on 020 7611 8332, v.slater@wellcome.ac.uk.
The Wellcome Trust is an independent research-funding charity, established under the will of Sir Henry Wellcome in 1936. The Trust's mission is to foster and promote research with the aim of improving human and animal health. The Trust invested nearly £1 million on arts and exhibitions activities that brought biomedical science to a range of publics in 2002.

Media contacts

Caroline Audemars for the Wellcome Trust
T 01243 544 127
E c.audermars@clara.net

Shaun Griffin, Wellcome Trust Media Office
T 020 7611 8612
E s.griffin@wellcome.ac.uk